Local veteran continues family tradition

DANBURY TOWNSHIP – When Scott Harris served in the military, he quickly learned how to get by on just four hours of sleep a night.

This discipline remains with Scott several years later as he co-manages The Corn Lady roadside stand with his wife, Lisa, while maintaining a full-time construction job.

“Ever since I was a kid, my grandma had a stand here, and she had a path from here to the house worn down from walking back and forth all day,” Harris said. “We’re just trying to get back to what a roadside stand should be — everything you grow, you sell, and everything you sell, you grow.”

The stand carries produce from the 12 acres of sweet corn, 900 peach trees and five different gardens owned by the Harris family.

Tradition plays a big role in managing the stand. Scott and Lisa are the fourth generation to manage the stand since Scott’s great-great-grandmother began setting aside homegrown produce in the 1930s. There used to be a much larger farm, but when his great grandparents both died, the land got split between his grandma and her siblings.

“They’d all grow their own stuff and then sell anything left over,” Lisa said. “My mother-in-law would help out, and then she finally took over. If they get too old to do it or have health issues or whatever, the next generation steps up.”

Scott said both tourists and locals are an integral part of their business season, which runs from July to Labor Day.

“They all know the stand as The Corn Lady because, years ago, there used to be a pear tree out front, and we were called The Pear Tree Stand,” Scott said. “When the tree disappeared, the newspaper came out and did an article where they called my grandmother The Corn Lady. It sort of just stuck.”

Every generation of owners has worked a full-time job outside running the stand. Lisa Harris does most of her work online, which she’s able to do from within the shade of a small building behind the stand, where wireless Internet makes the balancing act manageable.

“Working seven days a week with no break gets tiring,” Lisa said. “I enjoy doing it, though. You get to meet all sorts of nice people.”

“Mom worked a full-time job at Gateway for over 20 years, and she always told them she’d need three months off a year to run the stand,” Scott said.

Scott refers to The Corn Lady stand as micro-farming, meaning the Harrises do only a fraction of the business larger stores might do. Scott said it isn’t a bad position to be in, since The Corn Lady has a specific niche.

“There’s so few stands like ours around,” Scott said. “Produce doesn’t grow on an assembly line, it’s about what Mother Nature gives you. If you have good weather, the right temperature at the right times, you’re going to have a good harvest.”

Many customers search in vain for perfect-looking produce. Unlike big-box stores, where produce is polished and sold on appearance, The Corn Lady takes pride in the dirty homegrown look.

“Most people think that a little extra dirt on corn or tomatoes means it’s bad, but that’s what regular homegrown veggies look like,” Scott said. “At one point, we had a sign hanging that said ‘our stuff is grown outdoors, it might not look perfect.’”

As customers over the years have realized the look signifies better taste and fewer herbicides, Scott’s new problem is restocking the corn fast enough.

“When we run out of corn, I just walk out back to the field and pull more. You can’t get any fresher than that,” Scott said.

Gary Carter, a customer who vacations to Marblehead from Florida each summer, claims big-box stores can’t compete with the quality of The Corn Lady’s produce.

“We’re not paying for prettiness,” Carter said. “You get it at a grocery store and it’s all just magnificent looking, but it doesn’t taste very good. You need to see the dirt.”

Weather is the biggest factor for any produce farmer. This summer has been unpredictable with temperature changes, and there haven’t been many high-temperature days.

“When the temperature falls below 70 degrees at night, everything stops growing,” Scott said. “If you don’t get enough rain the ears get shorter. Out in California, they have irrigation, but we don’t do anything like that.”

Keeping a family tradition alive may be part of The Corn Lady’s charm, but according to Scott, it all boils down to customer satisfaction.

“When people come back for corn or tomatoes and they tell you how great it was, that’s the biggest satisfaction, the pride of knowing what you grew,” Scott said. “You care about what you sell, people appreciate that.”

The Corn Lady

The Corn Lady is located at 7931 E. Harbor Road and is open daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.